


The Collection

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Avengers Vol. 4 (2010), Cap's Kooky Quartet, Early in Canon, M/M, Nostalgia, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8880082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: In the early days of the Avengers, Steve finds out about Tony's Captain America memorabilia collection -- and much, much later, Tony tries to give a piece of it back to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jiokra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/gifts).



> One of the short prompts asked for a story about Tony's Cap memorabilia. Here you go. :)
> 
> (Thanks to Lysimache for beta.)
> 
> This story has been [translated into Chinese](http://yizhiajiu401.lofter.com/post/1f1fe61b_12313f10) by madeline_stony.

### Years Ago

Steve was up to his elbows in soapy water when he heard the front door open and shut, and then the voices of the rest of the Avengers echoing in the hallway. There was the sound of boots stamping -- likely to clear snow off -- and Clint's voice was low in a grumbled, indistinct complaint. Pietro's voice was a slightly higher growl, and Wanda's laugh rang out like bells.

Grinning to himself, Steve shook his head and picked up the next dirty dish. 

Even if he couldn't tell what they were saying, that was them, all right. His team. His new team, after the rest of the founding Avengers had decided to take a break. It had taken them a bit of time to come together, as a team, but they'd formed up eventually, and now they were even spending their off-duty time together; the three of them had gone out for the day. Shopping, Wanda had said.

For his part, Steve had had chores and paperwork to catch up on. And besides, he was the team leader -- he knew enough about unit cohesion to know that sometimes a group just got along better without their leader being there all the time.

So he was here, in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Oh, he didn't have to. For several reasons. Everyone had been very clear on that. Jarvis had insisted that the upkeep of Avengers Mansion was his job and that Steve certainly didn't need to stoop to washing dishes. Eventually even Tony had made one of his infrequent appearances. He'd rushed in one night as Steve had been cleaning up the plates from dinner, at his usual speed -- he was always moving like he had a thousand things to do, all of them top priority, and like probably half of them involved something being on fire. And then he'd stopped, taken a deep breath, and grinned a crooked grin at Steve, a smile that made him go warm all over.

"Dishwasher," Tony had said, in lieu of anything normal like _hello_ , and he'd plucked the plate that Steve was drying from between his hands.

"Hmm?"

"Dishwasher," Tony had repeated, and he'd pulled open a metal door underneath one of the counters. "I own one, Cap. No need to get your hands dirty. Or clean, as the case may be."

So Tony had taken time out of his day to show Steve how to use the dishwasher. Sometimes Steve even did use it, but that was mostly because it had made Tony happy. Sometimes he let Jarvis take care of the dishes after all. But a lot of the time, he just did it.

And no one had asked him why he did this in the first place, but he'd have told them. It kept him humble. He might have been Captain America, he might have become some kind of worldwide hero -- "bigger than Elvis," Tony had said, whoever that was -- in the decades since the war, but he was just a regular fella. He wasn't too good to wash dishes. Heck, even in the army, they'd kept him peeling potatoes as part of his cover story for years. It was a good cover -- but more than that, the potatoes had actually needed peeling.

Everyone needed to remember that. He needed to remember that. He was more than just some drawing in a comic book, more than a poster, more than a statue. Maybe he saved people, maybe he inspired people, but he was also just a man, and there were always tasks to be done.

And then, of course, Clint walked in, with Wanda and Pietro behind him. And Clint pointed. And laughed.

Steve realized the new team hadn't actually ever seen him washing dishes.

"You know," Steve said, placidly, keeping his voice steady, "if you're not going to help, Hawkeye, you could at least have the manners not to mock me while I'm washing your mess from breakfast."

Clint, for his part, wandered toward the refrigerator, swigged orange juice directly from the bottle, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

Steve sighed.

"I've got no manners, Cap," Clint said, cheerfully. "You know Jarvis will take care of it, really."

"I don't mind," Steve said, and he grabbed what had been Wanda's cup.

"Captain America," Clint said, and he whistled in a kind of mocking admiration, and Steve wanted to roll his eyes. "Can't imagine you washing dishes on your posters. Hey, does Stark know you do that?"

The reply seemed like a non sequitur to Steve. "Yeah," Steve said. "He showed me the dishwasher and everything. I like it better this way. Why do you ask?"

Clint gave him a look that was clearly supposed to be significant. "You know," he said. "The collection."

"The collection?"

Clint snickered. "Yeah, the collection. Oh, man, he hasn't shown you? You should ask him next time he comes by."

That hadn't been an answer. "What collection?"

But when Steve looked up, Clint had stuffed an entire bagel -- really? -- into his mouth and wandered back into the hallway with said cinnamon-raisin bagel hanging off his face. Answers were not forthcoming. The twins just looked at each other and then at him with identical bewildered expressions. They didn't know either.

The collection. Right. Whatever that was.

* * *

Steve couldn't say as he gave the matter a lot of thought. He was an Avenger, and there were always more pressing concerns. More supervillains. The Circus of Crime. The Swordsman. The Masters of Evil, back together with an all-new lineup. Even so, they still had a bit of downtime. Time to contemplate the new world Steve had found himself in. The idle question drifted through his mind once or twice: what did Tony collect?

What did Steve know about what rich men collected? He had the vague impression that they collected luxuries. Cars or yachts or racehorses. Art. Mansions.

But none of those things seemed like something _Tony Stark_ collected, except maybe cars. He didn't know Tony that well, but he was positive that bankrolling and housing a superhero team wasn't something your typical rich fella did, so it only followed that Tony's mysterious collection was... less than typical. Which didn't help narrow it down any.

He supposed he could have asked Clint, but that would have been like admitting defeat.

When Steve was a kid, he'd collected marbles and baseball cards.

He couldn't imagine Tony doing that, somehow. If Tony collected baseball cards -- heck, they'd probably be the same cards Steve had collected. It seemed like that kind of thing was worth a lot of money now.

But, no, that didn't seem right. Not for Tony.

It was a mystery.

* * *

And then one morning, Tony showed up.

Steve had come downstairs for breakfast, and there Tony was, already eating. It looked like for him it was night rather than morning: his hair was mussed, his shirt was rumpled, and the way he lingered over his cereal had a certain lethargic air. He must have been awake all night inventing, or whatever it was he did.

He stopped in the doorway, surprised to see Tony. Maybe he shouldn't have been. Tony still kept a bedroom for himself here, but he seemed to spend much less time at the mansion since the rest of the founding Avengers had moved out. Steve didn't know why. The only guess he had was that Tony wasn't quite comfortable around the new team yet, not like he'd been around the old one.

And then Tony raised his head and grinned and Steve was even more surprised. Tony was sporting the remnants of something that looked like it had once been a fairly nasty black eye, now gold and green along his cheekbone.

"Are you all right there?"

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Hmm? Fine, thanks. Why wouldn't I be?"

Steve motioned at his own cowl-covered face. "You've got. Uh. Your eye."

"Oh!" Tony raised his fingers to his cheek, not quite brushing the bruise. "Yeah, that. It's nothing. My, uh. My driver, Happy, he was teaching me how to box. I didn't manage to duck in time." He sounded sheepish and a little terse. Like that wasn't the whole story, maybe, but Steve couldn't imagine what else there was.

Steve stepped inside, heading toward the pantry in search of the oatmeal. "I could teach you, you know," he offered, as he found the oatmeal on the top shelf and poured it out into a saucepan, adding water. "If you just want some basic self-defense, I'd be more than happy to show you a few moves. If you actually want a boxing coach, though, that's probably not me."

"No," Tony said, a little awkwardly, "it was self-defense I was looking for, but I-- but you-- you're probably very busy."

Steve smiled. "No busier than you." He considered Tony's appearance. "Possibly less busy than you, even, if you've been up all night working."

"Yeah, I--" Tony made a quiet, distressed noise-- "There were armor repairs-- I haven't slept, but-- I mean. You're Captain America."

Something within Steve twisted up, and he couldn't quite say why he didn't want Tony to see him as just Captain America. "Hey," he said. "Right now I'm just a guy who's offering to teach you some hand-to-hand. I'm just a guy waiting for his breakfast to cook." Surely Tony -- Tony, the genius and billionaire industrialist -- knew what it was to be a regular person behind all the fame?

"So you are," Tony said, still awkward, and they waited in silence until Steve's oatmeal was finally done and he took his bowl and sat opposite Tony.

As he waited for his food to cool and watched Tony work on his cereal, he suddenly remembered Clint's remarks. Clint had said to ask him. Why not?

"So I've got a question for you," he began, and Tony looked up, surprised.

"Hmm?"

"Hawkeye was saying," Steve said, "that I should ask you about your collection...?"

And then Tony looked away, and a wave of -- pain? -- swept over his face. "Oh my God," he murmured. "I'm so sorry. Oh, God. I didn't-- I didn't mean to cause any offense," he added, like he was profoundly ashamed. 

Steve blinked. "I'm not offended. I just-- I wanted to know--"

"Of course," Tony blurted out, interrupting him. "Of course. Come on. Are you busy now? Come on." He ran his hands through his hair and then leaped out of his chair.

Bewildered, Steve left his oatmeal behind and followed Tony.

* * *

Tony unlocked the door, flipped the light on, and the first thing Steve saw was his shield.

Oh, it wasn't his current shield, his vibranium shield, the one the president had given him -- it was his original shield, the one that was made of more ordinary metal, the triangular one. The paint was almost as bright as he remembered: blue with a white star on top, striped on the bottom. It had clearly been restored with a lot of care.

The shield was on a pedestal a few feet away from the door, and gradually Steve became aware of the other items around it as he stepped forward into the room. Posters. Photographs, both signed and unsigned. Old comic books, under glass. A fragile-looking uniform, worn from age, on a mannequin. The huge room stretched back at least fifty feet, and everything in it was red, white and blue. Everything in it was _him_.

Tony's collection was... him.

He turned back; Tony was halfway turned away, he wasn't meeting his eyes, and his face was notably redder.

"Uh," Tony said. "Yeah. So. The collection."

"You have... a lot of stuff," Steve said, finally, because that was the only thing he could come up with that wasn't _what_ or _how_ or _why_.

The _what_ of it was obvious anyway, as was the _how_ \-- Tony was clearly rich enough to be able to afford whatever he liked, and determined enough to be able to hunt it all down. The _why_ , though... Steve didn't have an answer to that.

Tony smiled weakly. "Second-largest collection of Captain America memorabilia in the world," he said, and his voice wavered between proud and miserable. "Most of it goes on loan to museums, actually. A bunch of this stuff came back from a traveling exhibit a couple months before we-- uh. Before the Avengers found you. It's not usually just sitting around in my basement. I'm not just sitting here with my Cap stuff. I mean." He winced. "I know it looks kind of creepy. I. I should probably shut up now."

It could have been creepy, but it wasn't. This had meant something to Tony, somehow. He had meant something to Tony, and Tony hadn't even known him.

"Can I look around?" His voice was hesitant.

Tony waved his hand; it came out as a jerky, stilted motion. "It's _yours_ ," he said, and he still sounded strained.

Steve didn't know what to say to make it better.

But, good lord, Tony had so many of his things. Pictures lined the walls. They weren't just promotional shots. There were drawings he'd done. There was a poster he'd made for the WPA -- how had Tony even authenticated that? There were candid photos. Him and Bucky. Him and the Invaders. Him and Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, even. There were a lot of pictures of him and Bucky, and the familiar grief twisted at his heart. It had barely been a year for him; it had been decades for everyone else.

And Tony had his gear, too. Uniforms. One of his sketchbooks. A bundle of letters. And then -- Steve smiled to see it -- a little metal tin. His marble collection. His collection, here within Tony's. He'd given it to Arnie, he'd thought; had Arnie held onto it all these years for him? He looked to Tony for permission -- Tony nodded -- and he carefully opened up the little tin. The marbles were dusty, but the cat's-eye shooter he'd had was still in the box, blue all through the core.

He picked up the marble between thumb and forefinger. "This one was my favorite, when I was a kid."

Tony was still standing there, watching him. "I'd wondered." And then he sighed. "It was different, you know. Before we found you. You were dead. We thought you were dead. And I just-- I wanted--" He sighed again. "I can't explain it."

Steve put the marble back in the tin. "You liked Captain America."

Another faint smile. "Yeah. I did. Everyone did. You were a hero, and you were... real. You'd been a real person. I'm not making any sense."

"You wanted to bring me back," Steve offered. "You wanted to remember me, who I was, even if you didn't know me."

Tony's mouth was half-open. "Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I know it's silly--"

"It's not silly." Steve shook his head. "It was good of you."

He moved to the next table, opened the sketchbook, and winced. Too fragile. He hadn't been able to afford the best paper, and it was showing its age.

"You think so?"

Something about the way Tony said it was aching, yearning, like more than anything, Tony wanted his approval.

"I know so." He gave Tony a smile. "And then the Avengers actually did bring me back. So I suppose I owe it all to you, really, for funding the team in the first place."

"It's nothing," Tony said, like it was automatic. "It's not a big deal. I had the space. I had the money."

But it was clearly something. It was all something. He felt like he couldn't quite press Tony on this point. They didn't know each other well enough.

"Well, thank you," Steve said, feeling like he was repeating himself.

He fell silent again for a few more moments, going through his things; there were even film canisters -- probably his newsreels -- labeled meticulously. Tony had everything, absolutely everything.

"I can get to work on the paperwork right away," Tony offered, and Steve didn't understand what he meant, until he continued. "It really is all yours."

"What am I going to do with a floor full of my old stuff? You should keep it."

"Cap--"

"It meant something to you." Steve paused, turned, met Tony's eyes. "I meant something to you."

There was silence, then, and he wondered if he'd said too much. They didn't really know each other at all.

"I used to imagine you'd come for me," Tony said, very quietly, his voice gone wistful. His eyes unfocused. "When I was a kid, if I was-- if I was scared, I'd imagine that you'd be there. No one would stand up against you. You were Captain America, you know?" Yet another smile.

Adults? Other kids? Both? What in the world had happened to Tony?

"A few years ago I was... stuck overseas," Tony continued. "It was a bad situation. Dangerous. I nearly died. I remembered that I used to think about that. And I know you didn't-- you couldn't have-- but it helped. I think it helped me. Knowing that you could get through so much. It reminded me that maybe I could, too."

Steve smiled. "Then I'm glad I could be here. Even if I wasn't here. And you should definitely keep the stuff."

"Are you sure?"

He didn't need it. It was in the past. He was here in the future now. And Tony would loan it out, and maybe someone somewhere would see it and take heart, the way Tony had. He couldn't ask for a better outcome than that.

He nodded. "I'm sure."

### 2010

Avengers Tower was in disarray. It was the middle of the night, and though no one was awake -- as far as Steve could tell -- most of the lights of the common floors were still on. Pictures not yet rehung were resting against the walls, and every few feet, Steve passed piles of half-empty cardboard boxes. The Avengers -- not that Steve was clear on who the team was now -- were obviously in the process of unpacking. They were moving back in. They were moving home again.

Norman Osborn had taken over. He'd taken the tower. He'd taken the goddamn country. That was what everyone had told him, as soon as he'd woken up in DC, alive again. Apparently he'd missed a lot. And they'd all joined forces and stopped him, because that was what they did, what they always did.

And Steve had been pardoned by the president. The last rifts of the SHRA were finally healed. He could be an Avenger again.

He wasn't sure he wanted to be.

But here he was, wandering the tower at midnight, because there wasn't anywhere else he did want to be. And when it came down to it, didn't he always belong with the superheroes?

It didn't mean he was joining the team. He could just be here for a bit. Get his feet under himself again. It was what he did.

And then he passed by an open doorway and stopped, because someone was awake after all.

Tony.

Of course it was Tony.

The tiny room was dim, and Tony was sitting in there, hunched over a laptop. Steve supposed he didn't have Extremis anymore, either.

He didn't know what to think of him, even now that they'd adventured in Vanaheim together. They'd hugged. They'd made up. But Tony didn't know what he'd done. What they'd done. He wasn't ever going to know. He'd wiped his own mind just before Steve's resurrection.

And Steve just--

He couldn't be angry at Tony. He couldn't. Registration was over and done and settled, and he couldn't be angry when Tony wasn't ever going to remember anything he'd said or done. So Steve had tried not to think about Tony's sneering words, about the look in Tony's eyes when he'd told him to finish it.

They had a decade of better memories, after all. He'd just have to learn to cope.

Telling that to himself almost soothed the raw, prickling irritation.

Tony looked up and started to smile. And then he stopped. Like he wasn't quite sure if he could, anymore. If that was who they were to each other now.

Steve could do this. They had to try. So he made himself smile. "Evening."

"Evening yourself," Tony said, and the look in his eyes was... haunted.

What could be bugging him? It wasn't like he had any memories of the war left.

"What are you up to?"

Tony sat back, and that was when Steve saw what Tony had spread out on the desk in front of him. Newspapers. Newspapers, more half-empty boxes, and more newspapers. _The death of Captain America_ , the headline on the topmost paper proclaimed, and Steve's stomach clenched and twisted.

He'd been dead before. Hell, they'd all been dead before. But he wasn't exactly in the habit of reading his own obituaries.

Tony had a laptop open next to the pile of papers, with a spreadsheet; it looked like he was... taking notes?

There was nothing he was going to get from that except more pain. He was never going to remember.

He knew Tony, though. Tony probably thought he deserved it.

"Oh, you know," Tony said, with that airiness that they both knew was an affectation. "Just catching up on everything I missed."

"How about you don't?" Steve asked, and the question came out of him more sourly than he meant it to.

"Steve--"

Tony was wide-eyed, almost afraid, and they never used to be like this.

He took a shaking breath. "I forgive you, all right? It's over. It's done. I just-- I want us to be friends. Like we were."

Tony's smile was faint. "No going back, Cap. That's life for you." And then he patted the chair next to him, the only chair in the room that didn't have boxes in it. "Come over here a sec, will you? I've got something for you."

Mystified, Steve came closer, but he couldn't quite make himself sit. Tony was rising to his feet, rummaging through one of the boxes, and he sat back down with his fingers wrapped around something Steve couldn't quite make out. It had the approximate size and shape of a credit card.

"So it turns out that after you died," Tony said, "humanity did what it does best and tried to make a buck off you. A bunch of Captain America memorabilia went up for auction. Not anything I owned," he added, hastily. "I-- I mean, I don't remember, but obviously I didn't. Wouldn't have."

"I know," Steve assured him. He couldn't imagine it. He knew Tony still had a bunch of his old things, from before the ice, and he had the impression Tony was still loaning them out to museums. Tony wouldn't have just sold it all because he was dead. It wasn't like that had stopped him before.

"Anyway." Tony coughed. "The guy who had the largest Cap collection, Joseph Paglino, was... liquidating. So I bought this."

He opened his hand, and Steve could now see the object laying flat on Tony's palm, a little scrap of cardboard in a protective sleeve. 

It was his first Avengers ID card, from before Tony had made them identicards. It was only paper. It hadn't meant anything to him at the time. He'd probably tossed it in a drawer when Tony had given them all the newer, fancier, state-of-the-art identicards. But it had clearly meant something to someone. Someone had saved this.

The Avengers logo was emblazoned across the top of the little rectangle, and a headshot of Steve, cowl up, was in the upper left corner. Under the logo were the signatures: Gyrich in the middle, then the president of the United States below him, and above them both was the name that had drawn Steve's eye instantly: Iron Man. He'd been the team chairperson. And of course he'd signed it in his secret identity. The signature had that telltale awkwardness of Tony's handwriting when he was writing with gauntlets on.

They'd been friends. They'd been the best of friends. There had been a time when they'd never hurt each other, and they'd never imagined that they would. And here was Tony's name on his card.

They could be friends again. Couldn't they?

"It was the highlight of the auction, I'm told," Tony said. "The crown jewel of Paglino's collection. I paid two million dollars for it."

"Two _million_?"

Even after all these years, Tony could still surprise him.

"I can't speak to my own mental state, but I assume I didn't want anyone else to have it." Tony's smile didn't reach his eyes.

He tried to picture Tony in some auction, waiting patiently, and then stunning the crowd with his bid. He didn't know. Tony didn't either.

This was how Tony showed he cared, wasn't it? To him, it was just money. And Steve could imagine it. Tony had thought he was dead, and he'd wanted... a reminder? Something of their friendship? A sign that once they'd been allies?

Tony had missed him. Tony had-- God, Tony had loved him. Of course Tony had loved him. Maybe not exactly how Steve had loved him, but it wasn't like he'd ever needed to mention that.

Tony wiggled his fingers. The card -- his two-million-dollar ID card -- wobbled back and forth.

"Here." Tony's voice rasped. "It's yours, Steve. It belongs to you."

Steve reached out -- and he folded Tony's fingers around the card, and he held on.

He smiled. "I don't need it, Tony. You bought it. It's yours. It's even got your name on it." He glanced down at their hands. "It's an Avengers card. It should stay with an Avenger."

Tony tilted his head at him. In the half-light, his eyes were dark, dilated, more black than blue. He bit his lip. "You're not coming back to the team?"

They were still holding hands. Steve's pulse pounded in his head.

Maybe they could start over. Maybe they could start something new.

"I'm not sure yet," he said, but before Tony's face could fall, he squeezed Tony's fingers, once, lightly. "But even if I don't, it doesn't mean I'm not with you. You've got me, okay?"

"Steve?" Tony's voice wobbled.

"I know we can't go back," Steve said. "I know we can't, and I-- I'm sorry. But maybe we can go forward. If you-- if you--"

He couldn't say it. He'd never been good at feelings.

"Steve?" Tony repeated. "Gonna need some more words here, Cap." He glanced down at their hands, still joined. "Because I've got an idea, but this is one of those things I'd really hate to be wrong about."

He couldn't speak. So he raised his other hand, reached out, and skimmed his fingers along Tony's cheekbone. Hair bristled against Steve's palm. Tony shivered a little and breathed out, the air warm on Steve's fingertips.

"Yeah, okay," Tony breathed. "That was what I thought you meant." He laughed a tiny laugh. "Oh God. This is going to make things complicated."

"We already were," Steve pointed out.

Tony laughed again. "Yeah. I suppose so."

And then Tony leaned in and kissed him, ever so lightly. He was trembling, and when he drew away, he was shaking more, but he was smiling, and Steve thought maybe that was good.

"Hey," Steve said. "You all right with this?"

Tony smiled. "More than all right. But kind of terrified." He bit his lip. "The last thing I remember, we'd formed a team, and we were happy, like this, and I just-- what if--"

"It won't happen again," Steve told him. "It won't. We won't let it, okay? You'll come to me, and I'll listen to you, and we'll talk, and it will be better."

"Okay," Tony said. There was a flash of a daring grin, and it looked like an expression he hadn't worn in a year. "I knew there was a reason I loved you, Captain Optimism."

"Captain Optimism," Steve said, with a laugh. "I like it. Here, give me your expensive piece of cardboard, I'll change it--"

Tony laughed and laughed and kissed him again, and he set the card down and gathered Steve up in his arms. They didn't need mementos. They had reality.

**Author's Note:**

> [On Tumblr](http://sineala.tumblr.com/post/155541015349/fic-the-collection), as usual.


End file.
